GUEST BLOG: Knowing Your Audience
Posted on May 26, 2016 13:34 PM by WGCIT
By Tim Koide
VP Business Development & Strategy at HarvestPort
Everyday, the HarvestPort team is busy at work addressing the many different things necessary to deliver an effective and value-adding product to the agricultural industry. One of those essential activities is directly engaging with the folks whom we are trying to serve, and events like PMA Tech Knowledge are a wonderful way of doing that. This year, we had the opportunity of presenting during the "What's The Pitch?" session and also exhibiting in the Tech Start-Up Pavilion.
One of the critical preparations for an event like PMA Tech Knowledge is simply knowing our audience. Being an early-stage venture-backed startup, we have pitched many times to investors looking at the agtech space. The way that we interact with them--the information we present, and the way that we present it--is different from the way that we present to a group of seasoned industry professionals. Thus, leading up to Tech Knowledge, we edited and updated one of the many iterations of our company's slide deck, and our CEO, Brian Dawson, prepared himself to present to the appropriate audience. Rather than focusing on the operations and growth of HarvestPort, as we do when talking with investors, we focused on the product and its value.
Perhaps the highlight of our participation was being able to demonstrate the HarvestPort marketplace and its value directly to agribusinesses looking to make their operations more efficient, and other technology companies trying to find ways to access the market.
We look forward to participating in PMA events in the future!